New analysis reaffirms likely MH370 location

Source: CBS News

CANBERRA, Australia -- Analysis of a genuine Boeing 777 wing flap has reaffirmed experts’ opinion that a missing Malaysian airliner most likely crashed north of an abandoned search area in the Indian Ocean, officials said Friday.

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Australian government oceanographers had obtained a wing flap of the same model as the original and studied how that part drifted in the ocean, the Australian Transport safety Bureau said in a statement. Previous drift modeling used inexact replicas.

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The December findings were based in part on drift analysis of six replicas of a piece of Flight 370 known as a flaperon which was found on Reunion Island in the west Indian Ocean in July 2015.

It supported the December review’s findings by a team of international and Australian experts who re-examined all the data used to define the original search zone that the wreckage was most likely within a 9,700-square mile area on the northern boundary of the last search zone.